Foreign Insulators
by Marilyn Albers
Reprinted from "Crown Jewels of the Wire", October 1996, page 15
NEW FINDS
Yup, you guessed it. Bernie Warren made a return trip to France shortly
before the National Show in Long Beach, California, the weekend of July 19-20
and came home with six new FOLEMBRAY styles, plus several embossing and color
variations of existing CD’s made by other French manufacturers. He cleaned
them until they sparkled like jewels and collectors hovered around his table all
weekend.
My column this month will be a bit short on words in order to allow space for
the photos of these new styles. Taking them in order by CD number:
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CD 557.5: [Skirt] FOLEMBRAY // No 260
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The first insulator is CD 557.5 in yellow green. It has a base diameter of
2- 1/2" and is 2- 1/8" tall. The actual embossing as it appears on
the insulator will be given with each of the photos. |
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CD 669 is the tallest one-armed insulator made by FOLEMBRAY that we have seen
to date. It is a pretty light green. The base diameter is 2- 3/4", the
height is 4- 3/8", and the total span of the crown with arm is 3- 3/4". |
CD 669: [Skirt] FOLEMBRAY
// No 283
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CD 686: [Skirt] FOLEMBRAY
// No 291
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CD 686 is an unusual combination of a ‘spook’ (fuse insulator) with just
one arm. The glass color is light green. I know I have seen this style somewhere
in a catalog, but of course I can’t find it at the time of this writing. The
insulator has a base diameter of 2- 3/4", it measures 5- 3/8" in height and the total span of the crown with arm is
4- 1/8". This is really a unique piece! |
| CD 688.1 is an unembossed ‘spook’ with two arms, a style more familiar to
collectors of foreign glass. The rich emerald green color gives it a bit of an
‘L’ELECTRO VERRE’ look, but that’s only a guess. Perhaps Bernie will
find an embossed one that will identify the manufacturer. The height of this one
is 5- 3/4", the base diameter is just a whisker over 2- 7/8", and the
span of the arms from tip to tip measures about 5- 1/4". |
CD 688.1: (Unembossed)
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| CD 1055.1 is a shackle insulator in yellow green. The diameter of the top
flange is 3- 1/4" and the height of the insulator is 3". It is similar
in appearance to CD 1055, except that this one has two inner “skirts” (for
lack of a better description) instead of the one inner skirt normally found on
CD1055’s, so Woody added one decimal point to set it apart. |
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CD 1055.1: [Top flange] FOLEMBRAY
// No 900
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CD 1066.1 is a larger shackle insulator in dark emerald green.
It is nearly identical in size and profile to CD 1066, but here again it has two inner skirts instead of one, so Woody
added a decimal point to the CD number to highlight the difference. The diameter
of the bottom flange is 5- 1/4" and the height of the insulator is 4- 1/8". I had never seen
or known of any shackle insulators made by FOLEMBRAY until CD 1055.1 and CD
1066.1 made their appearance on the collecting scene. Many thanks, Bernie, for
sharing these new discoveries with all of us. |
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CD 1066.1: [Top flange] FOLEMBRAY // A 22 |
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